Get out the punch and pie and organize your voting blocks! The 2012 Harvey Awards Nomination Ballot is now available. As you will recall, nominations for the Harvey Awards are selected via voting on open ballots by comics professionals. The final awards will be voted on by professionals and presented at the Baltimore Comic-Con on September 8th.

Completed nomination ballots are due by Monday, April 16th, and can be emailed to harveyballots@hotmail.com.

PvP’s Scott Kurtz will emcee the awards ceremony for the fourth year in a row.

The Executive Committees of the Harvey Awards and the Baltimore Comic-Con are proud to present the official Nomination Ballot for this year’s Harvey Awards. Named in honor of the late Harvey Kurtzman, one of the industry’s most innovative talents, the Harvey Awards recognize outstanding work in comics and sequential art.

Ballots can be downloaded from HarveyAwards.org and completed forms can be e-mailed toharveyballots@hotmail.com.

Ballots are due for submission by Monday, April 16th, 2012. In addition to being available on the website, ballots will be sent to all major publishers and distributed at comic conventions. We look forward to your participation and input in this process, and we look forward to seeing you at the Baltimore Comic-Con and the Harvey Awards.

Returning for his fourth consecutive Harvey Awards, Scott Kurtz will be the Master of Ceremonies for the awards banquet, to be held Saturday, September 8th, 2012 as part of the Baltimore Comic-Con. “After Scott, Stan Lee, and the Fake Stan Lee brought the house down again last year, we had to have him back! We are thrilled that Scott agreed to come back to Baltimore and help to make the Harvey Awards ceremony as fun and exciting as the last few years have been!” said Marc Nathan, promoter of the Baltimore Comic-Con.

Scott Kurtz has been creating his own comic strips since he got hooked on Garfield in the 4th grade. In 1998, his comic strip, PvP, debuted on the world wide web (pvponline.com) with 700 daily readers. Over the last 10 years, PvP has grown into a genuine Internet phenomenon, growing in readership to an estimated 150,000 readers per day, a monthly title from Image comics, winning a Harvey Award in 2010 for Best Online Comics Work, and winning the Eisner Award for best digital comic in 2006. Scott co-wrote the book “How To Make Webcomics” and co-founded webcomics.com to help assist others in forging their own creative destinies.

Nominations for the Harvey Awards are selected exclusively by creators – those who write, draw, ink, letter, color, design, edit or are otherwise involved in a creative capacity in the comics field. The Harvey Awards are the only industry awards both nominated and selected by the full body of comic book professionals.

This year’s Baltimore Comic-Con will be held September 8-9, 2012. Convention hours are Saturday 10 AM to 6 PM and Sunday 10 AM to 5 PM. The ceremony and banquet for the Harvey Awards will be held Saturday night, September 8th. Additional details about the Harvey Awards and the awards ceremony will be released over the next few months.

Heidi MacDonald is the founder and editor in chief of The Beat. In the past, she worked for Disney, DC Comics, Fox and Publishers Weekly. She can be heard regularly on the More To Come Podcast. She likes coffee, cats and noble struggle.